money.  This is the most effectual of inventions to fertilize the rich man’s fields by the sweat of the poor man’s brow.  Ordinary tyranny, oppression, excessive taxation—­these bear lightly on the happiness of the mass of the community compared with a fraudulent currency and the robberies committed by depreciated paper.  Our own history has recorded for our instruction enough, and more than enough, of the demoralizing tendency, the injustice, and the intolerable oppression on the virtuous and well disposed of a degraded paper currency authorized by law or in any way countenanced by government.  It is one of the most successful devices, in times of peace or war, expansions or revulsions, to accomplish the transfer of all the precious metals from the great mass of the people into the hands of the few, where they are hoarded in secret places or deposited in strong boxes under bolts and bars, while the people are left to endure all the inconvenience, sacrifice, and demoralization resulting from the use of a depreciated and worthless paper money.

The condition of our finances and the operations of our revenue system are set forth and fully explained in the able and instructive report of the Secretary of the Treasury.  On the 30th of June, 1866, the public debt amounted to $2,783,425,879; on the 30th of June last it was $2,692,199,215, showing a reduction during the fiscal year of $91,226,664.  During the fiscal year ending June 30, 1867, the receipts were $490,634,010 and the expenditures $346,729,129, leaving an available surplus of $143,904,880.  It is estimated that the receipts for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1868, will be $417,161,928 and that the expenditures will reach the sum of $393,269,226, leaving in the Treasury a surplus of $23,892,702.  For the fiscal year ending June 30, 1869, it is estimated that the receipts will amount to $381,000,000 and that the expenditures will be $372,000,000, showing an excess of $9,000,000 in favor of the Government.

The attention of Congress is earnestly invited to the necessity of a thorough revision of our revenue system.  Our internal-revenue laws and impost system should be so adjusted as to bear most heavily on articles of luxury, leaving the necessaries of life as free from taxation as may be consistent with the real wants of the Government, economically administered.  Taxation would not then fall unduly on the man of moderate means; and while none would be entirely exempt from assessment, all, in proportion to their pecuniary abilities, would contribute toward the support of the State.  A modification of the internal-revenue system, by a large reduction in the number of articles now subject to tax, would be followed by results equally advantageous to the citizen and the Government.  It would render the execution of the law less expensive and more certain, remove obstructions to industry, lessen the temptations to evade the law, diminish the violations and frauds perpetrated upon its provisions,